Hearts
by Lavender and Hay
Summary: Follow up to Nerves. 1920, Isobel and Richard go on their honeymoon to Paris.


**Evidently, I can't quite leave this fic alone. Richard and Isobel's honeymoon, in Paris, the summer (of 1920) after they marry.**

"Isobel?"

She turned from the dressing table to face him at the sound of his voice from their bed. The doors to their balcony were open and the soft hum of Paris ebbed in from the street below; and against the background sound his voice was so soft as to be barely heard at all, uncharacteristically timid almost. It was the first time he'd spoken in a long while.

"You've been quiet," she told him simply, letting him know that she'd noticed, "I was hoping you'd tell me about it eventually. What is it, my love?"

He sat propped up against the pillows of their bed, he hadn't begun to dress for dinner yet; still wearing his daytime clothes, his tie loosened and his shoes on the floor. He looked decidedly uneasy and she knew for certain that there was something troubling him. This was their second evening in Paris and he had hardly said a thing all afternoon.

"I've been thinking..." he began slowly, "Or more accurately, I've been reading and it's made me think."

The radiance from the evening sun outside the windows reflected against his hair and made it glow slightly.

"When?" she asked, "I haven't seen you read anything since we've been here. We were rather too busy last night," she added with a mischievous glint in her eye.

"On the boat while you were asleep, mainly," he told her.

"Oh," she conceded, "I'm sorry I wasn't the best of company, but sleeping on boats really is the best policy for me, or else I feel a little bit queasy. What have you been reading, though?" she asked him, trying to return to the matter in hand, "And more importantly, why are you worried about it?"

"I only said it had made me think," he reminded her.

"Yes, but I _know_ that you're worried without you having to tell me," she told him, "I'm your wife; I know you quite well."

She still smiled to herself a little as she said the words, although they had been married for a good few months now.

He sighed a little.

"Of course you do," he agreed.

"Yes, I do. So please, Richard, tell me what is wrong," she implored him.

"You won't start to get tired of me, will you?" he asked rather suddenly, all of his words rushing out at once, taking her immensely by surprise.

For a moment she did not know how to reply.

"What on earth gave you that idea?" she demanded of him.

He seemed to think that she was angry with him, as opposed to just catastrophically surprised, and seemed to feel the need to justify his rather absurd question.

"I've never loved anyone like I love you, Isobel," he told her imploringly, "I couldn't bear to lose you."

"You're not going to have to lose me, you great fool," she told him, getting up from the chair at the dressing table- ignoring the fact that she was in her evening dress- and lying down beside on the bed, draping her arm firmly across his chest to reassure him, "I can't remember ever having felt love as I feel it for you. I love you so much that it frightens me sometimes. Now, what on earth made you say that?" she demanded of him again, jabbing her hand slightly accusingly against his chest, "What have you been reading?" she asked, rather suspiciously, remembering what he had said before.

She thought she almost knew which title to expect before he even opened his mouth.

"_Madame Bovary_," he confessed.

She suppressed an inner groan. She was tempted to ask whether it had been a wedding present from Cousin Violet, but restrained herself.

"You'd never read it before, had you?" she asked, her eyebrows raised slightly.

"Had you?" he asked, rather alarmed.

"I'd skimmed it a couple of times," she admitted, "Anyway, never mind how many times I've read it. Why on earth should it make you think that you're going to lose me just because you're reading _Madame Bovary_?"

He was quiet for a second.

"There are certain... similarities," he concluded uneasily, "I don't want you to ever get bored of our life together, though I know I can't offer you much."

"You offer everything I could ever think to ask for. And I won't be bored: I help you at the hospital," she pointed out.

"You're too beautiful by far for me," he continued nonetheless, "You could have anyone you chose. Not that you would, you're too loyal, you're far too faithful for that, but the thing is I almost wouldn't want you to be. If you get tired of me, I don't want to hold you back, despite how hard I find it to get through a day without you-..."

"Richard," she cut him off, "Stop. Please, just for a moment, stop. Firstly, you're talking about me as if I'm a bright young thing that's easily bored; I'm not, I'm an old woman."

"You're not an old woman," he told her, "You're beautiful."

"Nevertheless, Richard, I will say this once, and I never expect to have to say it again. Stop this foolishness. I _want_ you to hold me back, I want you to tie my down and all the rest of it. That's why I married you. I love you, I love you as another part of myself, I will never, never be tired of you, and I don't want anyone else. Is that clear?"

He nodded haltingly, as she drew her arm back over his chest and he slowly curled his own arm around her shoulder blade to hold her. She rested her head on his chest and they lay there for a while.

"And for heaven's sake, stop reading that blasted book if it's going to make you think nonsense like that," she added, half-jokingly.

She felt his chest shake a little beneath her head as he laughed a little. His thumb stroked lazily up and down the back of her arm.

"Do you really mean it?" he asked after a long time, "You've never loved anyone like you love me?"

She was quiet in response. It was clear, they both knew, that by that he implicitly meant Reginald.

"I loved him a lot more... purely, a lot more innocently than I love you," she told him, "He was my first lover, we were only together once we were married, and we were very content together. But really, we never faced any obstacles. From the start; I liked him, he liked me, and he asked me to marry him with relatively few serious objections from either family. In the twenty years before he died there was nothing really stopping us being together and living a reasonably comfortable life. With you it was the exact opposite: we really should never have been together at all. People would have told us from all sides that what we did was wrong, but I don't care because in our circumstances I don't think it was. That's the difference. I'm not sure that I could have weathered the start we had if it hadn't been with you. You're the only one I love enough, have always loved, in that way, to be able see it through regardless of the risk, of how difficult it was. I cared about Reginald passionately. I _love_ you passionately. I used to enjoy making love with him," she admitted, "But there were never moments when I just had to have him. Not like I have with you."

He blinked, he didn't know what to say. Slowly, he drew his hand over her cheek, brushing it softly with his thumb.

"But, Richard," she spoke with some uncertainty, "I have to tell you this: I still have Reginald's wedding ring; I still keep it with me, it's almost like a lucky charm. It's in the inner pocket of my coat now. Does that bother you?"

"No," he replied softly, "I couldn't ask you to undo a marriage of twenty years. It would be wrong of me. And without it, you wouldn't be you."

"Oh, Richard," she held the side of his head softly, pressing her lips up against his, "You wonderful man. I can't believe I have such a husband as you. I still can't believe that you're my lover, after all of this time."

His arm tightened around her back.

"Do you still want to go out?" he asked, "We don't have to."

"I don't want to move," she told him, talking into his chest, "I want to stay like this forever."

He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead gently.

"Well, we can stay here for the next three weeks at least," he told her, smiling.

**Please review if you have the time. Do you want any more?**


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